Virginia Tech Forestry students have an opportunity to trade places with students from the University of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand or Stellenbosch University in South Africa. The Students "trade places" by continuing to pay tuition and fees to their home institution while attending the other school free. The program allows two students to study Forestry and Natural Resources at each institution for one southern-hemisphere academic year (February – December).

To date, all Hokies who have participated in the exchange have declared the program their "best life's experience!" Travel to and from the host country is about all the additional cost to your education, since the housing and food costs are roughly equivalent to living in Blacksburg. Applications for the exchange program are distributed in September each year and the students are selected by November 15 for an exchange year that begins in February. Contact Dr. Shep Zedaker (zedaker@vt.edu), the Forestry Exchange Coordinator, for more information.

From the world famous Bell’s Beach in Torquay (home of the Easter Rip Curl Pro Surfing Championship), to the rain forest of the Otway National Park, to the sandstone rock climbs of the Grampions mountain range… the opportunity ofr outdoor adventure abounds within two hours drive of Melbourne’s Victorian School of Forestry in Creswick. Situated 125 km northwest of Melbourne, the Creswick campus is nestled in the rolling hills near Balarat, home of Australia’s “gold rush.”

The University of Canterbury is in Christchurch, on the east coast of the southern island of New Zealand. Known as the Garden City, Christchurch offers a temperate climate less extreme than that of Blacksburg, with windsurfing in Lyttleton Harbor and snow skiing less than two hours drive to the west.

Stellenbosch, the “city of oaks,” is nestled in the heart of the wine country and is South Africa’s second oldest town. The 24,000-acre Jonkershoek Nature Preserve, just 5 miles from campus, is home to leopards, baboons, mongoose, black eagles, and many other species that make South Africa a fascinating place for Natural Resources students to study and work. The university has 15,000 students and is the center of college athletics in South Africa. Languages include English and Afrikaans.